HEROIN use in Wales could rocket if the nation slumps further into recession, a leading drugs agency has warned.

In 2009/2010 there were 6,140 referrals for treatment for heroin use in Wales, down 625 on the year before. Seven of these were under 15.

But experts fear the addicts desperately needing help could rocket if the economy sinks deeper into recession amid today’s warnings of a global cash crisis.

The UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) is now predicted to grow 1.1% in 2011, compared to the International Monetary Fund’s prediction in April of 1.7%, and by 1.6% in 2012, compared with 2.3%.

The dramatic downgrade prompted economy guru Professor Brian Morgan, director of the Creative Leadership and Enterprise Centre at the School of Management at Uwic in Cardiff, to forecast: “For the next decade we’re going to have to get used to a slow-growing economy.”

In this tough climate, the Welsh Government’s peer mentoring programme aims to get a quarter of addicts off drugs and into work. But at the moment only around 10% are getting jobs.

Martin Blakebrough, chief executive of Newport-based drug agency Kaleidoscope, said: “The big problem we are going to struggle with is getting people off drugs when there is no option for them.

“And the national UK government are saying they want to see recovery of people who should not be on drugs.

“But the problem is employment options for young people are very limited. The inevitability is that we cannot get that recovery.

“It’s about giving people new options for life and if you have got nothing coming in what are we offering them?

“That is why it is so bleak. If the economic situation does not turn around we will have serious problems.”

If people have no alternative to drugs they will find it hard to make “the right choice”.

“We notice when we are trying to support people to get them into jobs it is increasingly difficult,” Mr Blakebrough said.

“This project commissioned across Wales was to get people into employment. The original target was very ambitious at 25%.

“It’s very difficult now, we can’t get those numbers into employment. We are talking about 10% or 11%.

“I don’t want to be a prophet of doom but the situation in the economy does have an impact on drug agencies’ ability to help people leave drugs behind them.

“At the moment it is just about possible. But we are going to have to look at different ways of engaging people – getting people into voluntary work and giving people a sense of purpose.

“If someone has a drug or alcohol problem you have got to give them a reason to get up in the morning.”

Clinical psychologist Dr Cecilia d’Felice, who spent her teenage years in Llansadwrn, in the Black Mountains, is an expert in substance abuse.

She worried drugs services would be wrecked because of ever tightening government budgets.

She said: “My hunch is that more and more of our services will be privatised and run at the lowest common denominator where everything is about outcome and costs.”

Dr d’Felice, who now works in King’s Cross, London, claimed addiction had to be approached from “a different angle”.

In the 1960s heroin was prescribed and addiction numbers were lower than today.

“The worst case scenario is that we give up on our drug-using population,” said the author of 21 Days To A New You, which is about changing self-destructive behaviour.

“It was not that long ago you would go to your GP and he would write a heroin script.

“In other words your habit would be maintained until you decided to come off it.”

Dr Kay Saunders works with heroin users from her practice in Butetown, Cardiff. She agreed people needed a reason to stop.

“Stopping using is one thing, but staying stopped is another,” she said.

“They have to do all the thinking about things and getting their life together. When they are working and have somewhere to live it is much less tempting.”

Dr Saunders has worked at her practice for 16 years.

“Plenty of people I have met were homeless and now have their own flat so I see people (get through it),” she said.

“You see some people who are not ready to change, but I am here, and when they are ready they come back. It’s very interesting because you can make a big difference.”

Part of the secret of getting people off drugs is to be “very strict”.

Recently a patient swore at her and stamped out of her office after she refused to give them Diazepam.

She thought the drug – a form of valium – would have been dangerous. The user came back and apologised.

Janet Roberts runs Wales’ drug and alcohol helpline Dan 24/7. The youngest person to phone the service about heroin was 12.

She claimed there was usually a trigger that caused people to want to stop using.

She said: “They may have been using for years and something will have happened, that might be about them reaching an age where they realise they cannot go on like this and it is time to change.”

A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “The peer mentoring project is a Wales-wide four-year project backed with £10m from the European social fund through the Welsh Government and aims to help substance misusers develop their skills in order to achieve economic independence. As a government we acknowledge that, in the current economic climate, it is particularly difficult for people with substance misuse problems to find or get back into employment.

“However we are committed to making the peer mentoring scheme work so that as many participants of the scheme as possible are able to find sustainable employment.”

Supt Liane Bartlett, of South Wales Police Communities and Partnerships, insisted Wales’ largest force was intent on stamping out drugs. She said: “We are committed to ridding our communities of drugs, including heroin, by proactively targeting drug dealers, running regular operations across the force area and acting regularly on information we receive from the public.

“Where possible, proceeds received from drug-related crime are re-invested into the local community so local people benefit.

“But is also our priority to work with our partners, not just to enforce the law, but to tackle the wider issues involved in the long term. We work in continuous partnership to implement the Welsh Assembly’s 10-year substance misuse strategy, which incorporates education, treatment provision and wider health and social care.

“This includes the All Wales School Core Programme to educate children about the dangers of drugs and the successful drug intervention programme which refers drug users in our custody suites to appropriate treatment programmes and referral pathways.”